Home of Poi: Mental health. Can I ask some advice?

Hi guy's,

I guess I'm not really sure how to start this thread. The advice I'm after is not about my own mental health but that of a friend, and what I can do as someone close to him.

I suppose it's best if I tell the story first and see if what my flatm8 and I did was the right thing.

So last wednesday I arrive home to find a friend of ours sitting in our lounge talking to my flatm8. This friend has always been a little random and has random tangental conversations all the time, but this time it was different. Scarily different. We couldn't really communicate with him on any concious level, we also knew he was not under the influence of anything, before anyone asks.

Questions would be replied to in fluent Serbian (Something no one knew he spoke) or would lead to random sentances about the nature of being, claims to be the anti-christ, and observations about death, destruction, and how none of it mattered because he was an experience of himself that had travel back through time to the egyptian period and seen the way things were meant to be.

All of this was combined with some obsessive behaviour, we found several spoons on his person, which he claimed he needed for ballance as they had both curved and straight edges. He also had trouble remembering what had happened the weekend before (we'd all been to the same party and know what had happened), when we pressed the question he became agitated and aggressive, although never violent in any way.

Now, this happened over the period of about 5 hours, we called friends who were psyciatric nurses and they advised us to call NHS direct, we did this and NHS told us to take him to a hospital. We did this. After sitting in the hospital for another 5 hours (our health service may be free, by hell does it takes it's time!) and keeping our friend out of trouble, the duty psyciatrist told us they would admit him as he had had "an acute psycotic episode", they found him a bed and asked him to come into care, which he did willingly. I was later told they would have sectioned (committed) him if he hadn't come in willingly, and that my flat m8 and I would have had to sign him in.

Now as far as I know, he's in a secure unit in hospital on Anti-Psycotics and Anti-depressants, and although concious is still experiencing the same detacment from reality we saw earlier.

I think my friend did know he needed help, and that was why he came to us and never resisted our suggestions at any point, but I can't shake this feeling in my head that we could have done more, and was what we did the right thing?

I'm really shaken by the whole thing, a little under a week ago we were talking as normal and now this... how can someones mind turn in on itself so quickly and so drastically? We know he was under stress, and had problems of his own, but we also thought he was dealing with them very well.

So I'm sat here, and I'm confused, I'm upset, and I'm very worried for my friend, he's been there for me when I've been low, and now he's in a hospital. I'm reluctant to visit him, but I *WILL* be going to see him today or saturday, I just don't know what to say....

Thanks for listening guys.
Sorry to bring a downer on your Friday.

PsyB.